


indulgences

by cruellae (tinkabelladk)



Series: build you a cathedral [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:35:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25621474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkabelladk/pseuds/cruellae
Summary: This is the alternate (bad) ending totake me to church, (aka the cathedral fic) and I highly recommend you read that one first.now with gorgeous fan art byBlazhyandreveriesky (Sora)
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: build you a cathedral [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857217
Comments: 34
Kudos: 338





	indulgences

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens if Goro takes Maruki’s offer in chapter six of [take me to church](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25060264/chapters/60697969).

Akira knows that he’s forgotten something, maybe many things. But Goro doesn’t seem to mind. Goro’s sharp edges are softened by something almost like sorrow, only it can’t be sorrow. There is no sorrow here. 

“Did I used to have a cat?” Akira asks, sitting in the sunshine of a clear spring morning with a cup of tea by his side. He might like some coffee, but they never seem to have any. Only tea, green with the slightest hint of flowers, a scent that he doesn’t associate with anything at all. 

“Maybe when you were a kid,” Goro replies, letting his fingers brush along the line of Akira’s back as he makes his way into the kitchen. “Not since we met.” 

Meeting Goro is another moment that is shrouded in golden fog, a hidden light that would burn him away if he dared look upon it. But it must have been a good thing that brought Goro into his life. 

“We were apart,” Akira says, curling his hands around the mug. “And then I found you again. Didn’t I?” 

“Of course you did, darling. You saved me.” 

Akira smiles, then. He likes knowing that he saved the man he loves. He thinks he used to try and save everyone, but it’s so much simpler now that his world has narrowed down to just the two of them. 

“Let’s walk,” he says, getting up. “I have something new to show you.” 

Goro follows him out of the simple cottage where they live, down the path between the weeping willows and into the wide meadow of golden grass that surrounds the cathedral. He takes Goro’s hand as they pass beneath the shadow of the great building. Goro’s fingers are warm in his as they walk in the shade. 

Akira leads Goro past the tall wooden doors into the hushed coolness of the cathedral. He dips his fingers in the font at the entrance, murmuring a soft blessing as a drop of it slides down his skin. He remembers awakening, once upon a time, to a great power, remembers the blood running down his cheeks like tears. 

But there are no Personas here, except for the ones he has created, displayed in all their stained glass glory above the pews, sculpted out of wood and marble and ice, again and again and again. 

There are too many Personas in the collection to belong only to Goro and Akira. But he doesn’t know who else there is.

“Is that me?” Goro asks, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the large marble sculpture standing beside the confessional. The figure is wearing a long nosed mask, like a plague doctor, and has a princely smile on his face. 

“Yeah,” Akira says, turning to him. “Do you like it? I made it for you.” 

Goro’s smile twists in that way that could be sorrow, if such a thing were permitted in the world Akira has woven for them. 

“I love you,” he says, pulling Akira close for a kiss. But he never says anything about the statue. 

“I want to build an orphanage,” Akira says. The two of them are lying on the grass outside their cottage, on their backs looking up at the sky. 

Goro takes his hand, squeezes. Akira thinks he remembers a time when Goro wasn’t affectionate, was closed off and cold. But it must be a figment of his imagination. Goro could never be cruel to him. 

“I think there could be kids here,” Akira says. “I’ve dreamed about them. If I build an orphanage, they might come.” 

“This is your world, darling,” Goro says, turning his head to look over at Akira. His hair shines like a halo in the sunlight. 

“It is, isn’t it?” Akira’s not entirely sure what that means, but it settles on him like a weighted cowl, and he’s quiet for a very long time, looking up at the perfect sky. 

The first yellow-eyed orphan to stumble into the welcoming structure Akira built is named Ryuji, and he has blonde hair, a perpetually runny nose, and an attitude problem. He’s followed shortly by little Ann, and the two of them become inseparable, pulling each other’s hair and crying for Akira’s attention. After that, knobby-kneed Yusuke, who loves to draw pictures of the cathedral, and Makoto, who scolds the others with hands on her hips. Futaba shows up in a tattered robe, a black cat in her arms. Haru arrives with a sweet smile on her upturned face, her hands always so eager to be helpful. The last one is Sumire, shy and quiet, always on the edges of the group, looking in. 

Together, they are a flock of brightly colored birds, chirping and trilling and laughing across the open meadow and through the cathedral’s once-quiet sanctuary. Akira can’t remember if it’s always been this way, but that doesn’t bother him. He’s happy with the world he’s created, secure within his cocoon. 

The kids are kids forever. They never grow old, and Akira doesn’t either. But Goro does. His eyes, dark as dried blood, grow cloudy and dim. His golden hair fades to gray, and wrinkles line his face. 

Akira doesn’t care. Goro is the love of his life, and nothing can change that, not time, not distance, not the distortions of the cognitive world. Amidst all the fog of all the things Akira can’t remember, that love burns like a torch. 

And then Goro dies. Quietly, in his sleep, without ever saying goodbye. 

Akira, waking beside a corpse, lifts his beloved in a final embrace. Goro is heavy in his arms, weighted like guilt, like grief. But Akira does not rest, does not set aside his burden. He carries Goro down the cobblestone path that winds between the weeping willows, that runs along the orphanage’s yard where the children are playing under the springtime sun. The cobblestones lead him to the cathedral’s entrance, where he kicks open the great wooden doors and strides inside. 

The stained glass windows cast colorful, shifting light on the body in his arms, arms and legs gone limp and swaying in death. When he reaches the catacombs, the flickering candle light makes the shadows deeper, the darkness sharper.

In the crypt at the cathedral’s very heart, Akira sets his burden beside a wide coffin that seems like it was waiting for that very purpose. He pries open the heavy marble lid, and finds his own face waiting for him. His own face, but aged, as Goro has aged. The physical body that tethers his Shadow self. 

Akira sets Goro gently in the coffin beside his own breathing form. And then he lets himself unravel like a tapestry coming apart, returning his essence to the body that has been sleeping for a lifetime. 

Seated again within his own skin, he turns on his side to pull Goro into his arms, as the ground trembles beneath them. 

Long fissures appear in the great stone walls of the cathedral and tall windows shatter, rainbows of stained glass shards littering the floor. The children and the cat playing in the yard of the orphanage disappear in puffs of black smoke, nothing more than shadows. The marble altar cracks down the middle and the many statues hidden deep in the catacombs crumble to dust. 

Akira lies in the coffin beside his only love, while the Cathedral of Grief, the last bastion of sorrow in a world that has moved past suffering to a brave new future, collapses in on itself and disappears. 


End file.
